"The Older I Get, the Faster I Wuz..."
Back in the day when 'Smokey and the Bandit' was in first-run theatrical release, Fuzzbuster (cheap) and Escort (expensive) radar detectors were still pretty new stuff. Lots of drivers had them and also the CB radios needed for talking about all the 'Bears' and 'Countie-mounties'. The era's quaint cat-and-mouse games between speeders and authorities were lots of fun, and occasionally could even be epic -- hard as that is to believe today. Motorcycle 'Track days' and racecourse-based performance riding schools did not exist yet.
The universally disliked 55 mile-per-hour energy-saving speed limit helped encourage widespread scofflaw behavior and civil disobedience. Supposedly fast riders would boast: "I never get tickets" and go on to describe in detail their combined stealth-riding tactics, methods, road-wisdom and technology countermeasures. A few even used highly illegal radar jammers.
Name: Joe Pasquarello
Photo Location: Outside Anchorage, AK
Photo Credit: Mike Nothom
Story Behind Photo: Photo taken while I whizzed by our chase vehicle just prior to receiving a Performance Award from the local Sheriff. When asked why I was so far ahead of the group (of Harley riders) I exclaimed: "They're chasing me, they're chasing me!" He chuckled and wrote me up anyway...nice guy though.
One time on a road trip to Bike Week in Florida I had a pretty fancy one of those jammers. Never could quite figure out how effective it was at jamming, but it sure was fun to play with other speeding dudes driving radar detector-equipped muscle cars. They'd fly by and get about 100 yards ahead and you'd flip the jammer on and their detector would like up like a Christmas tree and they'd nail the brakes really hard (which was tactically correct). A minute or two later you'd be half a mile or more ahead again and they'd take their Camaro (or whatever) back up to flank speed and blast right by. After they'd gone a little ways farther you'd hit them again with the jammer and the brake lights would pop back on and the entire scenario would repeat as I tried to keep from laughing. Once or twice I even got a puff of tire smoke from the outlaw dude's tires as the car tipped forward into its brakes a little too aggressively. Despite the great amusement of this game, I put this sociopathic toy away after that trip. Permanently. It was just too mean.
To all those moto-speeders who liked to boast they were so skillful they could ride really fast most of the time, yet never get tickets... Well yeah, sure. After riding with a fair number of these boastful narcissists I eventually concluded their stories were largely BS, and formulated a private theory: If you think you are riding fast a lot but are not getting tickets once in a while, then you are not really riding all that fast. The only way to be sure you are riding illegally fast frequently and for longer distances is if you are getting tickets occasionally. Really fast riders all get tickets. They are unavoidable.
Confirmation of this came one day at the old Jan Cutler - Steve Losofsky Reno BMW store. I was there once only, passing through on my way from somewhere to somewhere else. Jan and Steve were among the hardest-core originals when it came to long distance illegal high speed riding and their shop was a Mecca for many like-minded riders. It featured a wall where hundreds of fast riders had pinned up their tickets, or copies of them. This display was a thing of beauty. A shrine. I stood before and marveled. And today I wonder if anyone back then was smart enough to take a high-res photo of it? No phone-cameras existed so this would have required 35mm film inside a dedicated camera. If anyone has one (?) let me know and maybe we'll make and sell a poster-sized print. It was that inspiring.
The only certain way to know you are a too-fast rider is if you are getting enough tickets to be worried about losing your license on points. I'm not there (anymore), and most riders today don't care very much about such outlaw horoics, but even now almost every speeding ticket has memorable story potential. Here's one...
About twenty years ago, when the Aerostich company was about ten or twelve years along, I was riding a little too fast on some rural two lane road around southern Ohio. Or some nearby state. Heading back from Bike Week maybe. I've forgotten all these specifics but still clearly remember the exact roadside location, scene and situation.
The cop had pulled me over and asked for and received my license and registration and had gone back to his patrol car to write me up while I sat there on my bike forlorn but also a little confused. He'd sure been looking at me and my bike funny while talking about my speeding as I was getting my wallet out. All law-enforcement firm and gruff, but there was also something slightly odd about his manner. I could not quite put my finger on it.
He comes back with my ticket, hands it to me and I sign it. Then he says, brightly: "Isn't that one of those new Aerostich suits?" Our innovative riding suits were then getting a lot of coverage in most of the motorcycle magazines. Oh crap I thought, now stone-faced. This hick county cop was a rider! Aaagh! I'd missed it completely while he was talking with me after the stop. Post-signature and now we had a nice conversation (through my slightly gritted teeth) about his riding and the Aerostich suits. At the end I still had the stupid ticket. &%#*?!!! If only I'd been able to somehow figure out he was another rider BEFORE he'd gone back to the patrol car to write out that ticket. It could have been a warning instead. Except he was too professional and I missed it. Without that cop's Aerostich suit interest this ticket incident would be completely forgotten by now, just like so many other long-forgotten tickets from back in the days. One of too many.
Now let me tell you about another one. A "100+ mph" big ticket received on the side of California's 1-5 when folllowing at-a-good-distance some guy absolutely flying along, driving a late-model BMW 7 series car...and about one from the OPP (Ontario Provincial Police aka 'Mounties') twenty miles south of Sudbury...and about the roadside warning received only fifteen miles from home on I-35 after deliberately (and very slowly -- only 1.0 mph) passing a MN Highway Patrol car which for some reason had been holding everyone else up at exactly 55.0 mph for the previous seventy miles...and about...and about...and...
Not only sadistic, but CRIMINAL. It’s ILLEGAL to block the left lane when other traffic approaches at (even a little) higher speed. Bastard.
Way back when, with the 55-speed limit was in full enforcement, I made a long-haul trip from LA to Montana and back on my ’82 Suzuki GS1000. Most of the time it was highway travel to eat up the mileage. While in Montana, out in the middle of nowhere, I was trying to outrun a summer rainstorm so I put the hammer down on the interstate. Everything was fine, probably running just short of triple digits, no one on the road, and thenl I passed a highway patrol officer on the opposite side of the highway. He immediately pulled a u-turn across the medium turned on his lights and raced to catch up. As the only one on the road, with nowhere to run or hide, I ate my bravado and pulled over to wait for him. All the while trying to figure out where the county courthouse was so I could pay the ticket and get on my way. Looked like it was going to be a huge time suck. The cop was very cordial and efficient, and promptly handed my ticked and said “That will be $5.00 please.” Eh, what? Sure enough the ticket also had a receipt to show that the $5 was full payment of the traffic fine. A crisp Lincoln to the cop and I was on the road again. Best ticket ever! Found out later that the State of Montana objected to the imposed 55MPH limit, but would loose their federal highway funding if they ignored the restriction, so this was their work-around.
Had a friend who was an actual “mountie” who liked to talk about the other side of the interaction. He told a story with a wide smile about driving in the left lane of a 4 lane highway at 5 below the limit to see what people would do. Sadistic prick. LoL.
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